I was working on our taxes the other night (See Government Rule No. 1 on previous posting). After about an hour or so, I leaned back and stretched and my eye was caught by a piece of petrified wood on my desk. Now before you get started, this in no way had any reflection on my entering into retirement, and isn't your opening for the "You're so old..." and "What was it like crossing the alps and soldiering with Hannibal" jokes. I got enough of that in my last assignment. So just keep reading.
Anyway, this particular piece of my history came from the middle of the desert in Egypt. It seems that as a young first lieutenant, my MP platoon happened to be securing a jump zone for a combined airborne exercise with some members of the Egyptian military back in 1985. The drop zone was littered with these brown things. So, being the curious type, and bored because I wasn't jumping, I wandered out to see what this stuff was. Petrified wood. Big chunks of it. They still also had mineral deposits on them. So, I proceeded to do what GIs have done for centuries -- I picked up a few souvenirs.
When I got back home, I asked the earth science teacher at my high school what he thought of this. He told me that the desert area was a huge sea at one time, long, long ago. In fact, he told me that the whole area was covered with forests before the sea came. Hmmmmm.
While there, I also got time to visit the Great Pyramids at Giza and took some of my soldiers with me. Having obviously not paid much attention to the descriptions and accounts of the pyramids, I was not sure what would be inside them or much of anything else concerning them for that matter. So, our little band set off to discover the secrets of the ancients. We had to crawl up ladders and through very narrow passageways but finally got into the burial vaults. They were huge. The walls were smooth and cool, and the blocks were huge and fit together in such a way that our modern architects and masons would be very envious.
I was absolutely overcome with deep thoughts of "They didn't build these by themselves." and "Just think of the history this place has seen." when one of my junior soldiers blurted out: "C'mon LT. This place is hot. Let's go have a beer."
Well, it seems some things don't ever change. I guess it's like that old saying...youth is wasted on the young. But I did have to laugh to myself. Any time you are doing taxes and you can have a funny flashback, that's a good diversion. No, I didn't go down stairs and have a beer... but I think I did back then.
Laughing is good exercise. It's like jogging on the inside.
Hooah
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